Merle Haggard Tribute: 10 Best Things We Saw

Miranda Lambert, "Misery & Gin"

Miranda Lambert has performed Snuff Garrett and John Durrill's "Misery & Gin," recorded by Haggard in 1980, on many occasions over the years, including the ACM Honors last August. In Lambert's capable hands, "Misery & Gin" was exquisite and devastating, never overstating itself musically but letting her aching vocals convey the song's profound sense of loss and liquor-soaked existential paralysis. It also highlighted some of the parallels between Haggard's writing and her own "Vice," where a woman has as much right to fall apart, desire physical intimacy and get really messy as any man. J.F.